making your home more livable by removing things that are not necessary for your life as you’re currently living it

removing necessary things from view to create the illusion that your home is not occupied by a person with human needs.

Who benefits from the conflation of these two very different meanings? A good cold-reading answer to any question beginning “Who benefits…?” is “People who already have privilege,” but let’s step back a bit.

Humans are generally pretty rubbish at judging space in absolute terms; we tend to use visual cues. That’s why narrow cycle lanes can be more dangerous than no cycle lane at all; because motorists use lane markings as a guide for how much space to give cyclists rather than making their own assessment of how much space there is. So, when buying a house, we ask “How many bedrooms? Is it detached?” and treat that info as a guide to the space available.

Professional house-stagers exploit this human tendency to use visual cues to judge space. Someone once told me about viewing an expensive flat as a potential buyer. She and her mother both flopped down on the two-seater sofa and were very surprised to find that they could barely fit on it. That’s when they realised it was a piece of “staging” furniture designed to deceive the eye into thinking there was space for a two-seater. I wonder how many other people would also find that their bottom is a better judge of space than their eyes and brains.

I’m new to all this, but I’ve seen plenty of tricks already. Like the “double bedroom” with a double bed in it but literally no other furniture – and when I looked properly, I realised there was no room for a wardrobe or bedside table or anything else. The bathroom where it was clear you had to be below a certain body size to sit on the toilet (like some really boring fairground ride?). The kitchen with a dining table and four chairs pushed against the wall to make it a “kitchen/diner”, except that there wasn’t room for anybody to actually sit at the table.

If you downloaded that RIBA report, you’ll see that the space-shaving tricks start before the house is even built. A house-builder won’t reduce the number of bedrooms, because that’s so key to how we judge houses. But they might remove a cupboard here, some hallway space there. As a result, British houses are distinctly lacking in built-in storage.

So why do we talk about “clutter” as if it’s a moral failing, rather than a structural problem?

Yes, some people are capable of keeping a house free of “clutter” (visible evidence of occupation) all the time. Who are those people?

property developers who don’t actually live there

buy-to-let investors who don’t actually live there

second home owners who keep the place as a pied-a-terre but don’t really live there

people with access to more space-per-person than average, plus enough control over that space to fit it with the storage they need.

Are you sensing a theme here?

At the other end of the spectrum you’ve got people who can’t keep a place free of clutter (for long). And there you have people with mobility problems, people with kids, people with difficult family members who keep crashing on the couch because they have nowhere else to go, people with depression, people whose landlords won’t provide any storage despite having advertised the house as “fully furnished”, people with chronic fatigue, people with too many damn housemates.

So when you talk about clutter as something to be overcome, like a moral failing or an illness, you’re ignoring the privilege that makes it very easy for some people to have zero clutter. And you’re ignoring the vulnerability and powerlessness of people who can’t get on top of clutter.

I would like to find some different words to talk about this, because I still believe in the power of getting rid of things you truly don’t need or want. But I don’t want to contribute to the shaming of people who have their books stacked up in piles because the landlord won’t let them put up a set of shelves, or boxes in the corner because there’s no space to unpack. I’m sure other people have gone further in thinking about this issue than I have. Suggestions for further reading welcome!

My partner and I have decided to sell our house. We’ve followed the conventional wisdom, as set out in a thousand telly programmes, how-to guides and magazines: tidy, declutter, deep-clean, carry out minor repairs, etc, etc. But the reality of getting your house ready for marketing photography or for a viewing is more than that: it’s about trying to hide the fact that the house is currently inhabited by humans with bodies.

To make your house into a desirable object, the evidence of your actual inhabitation must be removed from view. This means (temporarily, thank God) hiding the hundreds of tiny things that make your house a comfortable and convenient place to spend time in: the bins, the spare loo roll, the much-used appliances that normally sit on the worktop, etc. This week, as we shoved the soap-dish into a cupboard and drank straight from the tap to avoid getting any cups dirty, it came to me: selling your house turns you into a manic pixie dream girl.

For anyone who’s not up on the concept, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Twitter account will give you a good idea. She has no interior life of her own and exists as a human reward for the male protagonist. She is quirky, bubbly, attractive and in no way an actual person with needs. In other words, she’s the human equivalent of the house with no shampoo in the shining bathroom, no mugs on the coffee table, no shoes in the porch. Despite the surface quirkiness, she’s a blank canvas for you to start sketching your own character development.

Laurie Penny nails it when she writes that it’s easy for youngish women to get shunted into the manic pixie mould. Are you an attractive-ish female-identified person who can tick three or more qualities off this list?

Petite
Giggly
Creative in your spare time
In a “creative” profession
In a job you dislike but can joke amusingly about
Quirky
Pink/blue/red/green/purple-haired
Disorganised
You enjoy an unusual hobby
Tactless
Stupid
Insightful
Clumsy
Caring
Witty
New to the area/country or in the middle of travelling
Spontaneous
Eccentric
Unreliable

If so, I’m guessing that at some point in your life you’ve been mistaken for a manic pixie dream girl (who does not exist) by some straight guy (who was slightly disappointed when you turned out to be a person). And when I say “at some point in your life”, obviously I mean “at a point in your life when you were young, attractive and probably thin”.

For others, selling your house is the first time you have to pull this crap. “Soap? Shampoo? No way! I just jump into a mountain stream! Possibly I yelp adorably while doing so and then encourage you to jump in as well. Shoes? Hell no, you won’t see any shoes when you come to view my house. I just walk barefoot to my adorable job at the quirky bakery. Or perhaps I don’t actually have feet. Maybe it’s just a cute haze from the ankle down. And before you ask, no, of course I do not eat or go to the toilet or do laundry or wash dishes or file any paperwork.”

Meanwhile, the house itself backs you up. “Bins? I have no bins! (Please don’t look behind the hedge.) My floors have never witnessed cat-sick! I always have a vase of fresh flowers! I always smell of something nice like vanilla or coffee but don’t worry, no food or drink is ever prepared here because there are no human bodies here! No human bodies! None! I am here to help with your character development. Maybe you’ll be living in me when you meet your soulmate, quit your job for something better or take up snowboarding!”

I haven’t felt this bad about owning a human body since I was a teenager. And – maybe coincidentally, maybe not – my body has recently been going out of its way to remind me that it’s real.

Manic Pixie Dream Girling is work. Hard work. If you’re doing it to sell a house for thousands of pounds: marvellous. If you’re doing it for no reward, because your existence has been framed as somebody else’s reward: terrible.

Read the articles about how to prep your home for viewings. Imagine they’re talking about a person and not a house. I hope the psychic violence behind the Manic Pixie Dream Girl framework jumps out at you like a murderer jumping from behind my super-clean shower curtain.

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